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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28905573">sidereus dust</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpleshell/pseuds/purpleshell'>purpleshell</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - 1990s, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Developing Relationship, M/M, Smoking, Strangers to Lovers, rated explicit for like one bj scene, side renmin, which could go as mature but eh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:53:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,832</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28905573</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpleshell/pseuds/purpleshell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Donghyuck comes back into Jeno's life like a supernova. Transient and made of thousands of stars glued to his skin, he surges through Jeno with a force of an astronomical event. As if this is their first time, as if Donghyuck never left.</p><p> </p><p>//or alternately:  two years after he left his and jeno's hometown, donghyuck comes back and, this time, he won't leave any questions unanswered</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Lee Jeno</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sidereus dust</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>an idea that wouldn't leave my head after that one nohyuck picture my dear nini said it gives off a 90s vibe and, 5k words later, here we are :') i really hope you enjoy reading it as much as was while writing it &lt;3 as always, huge thanks to s for editing this and nini who helped me go through with this idea!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Donghyuck comes back into Jeno's life like a supernova. Transient and made of thousands of stars glued to his skin, he surges through Jeno with a force of an astronomical event. As if this is their first time, as if Donghyuck never left.</p><p>“Is that who I think it is?” Jeno hears Jaemin whisper, gripping tightly on the sleeve of his uniform. Unfazed by the sudden pressure of blunt nails into his skin, Jeno nods. His mouth dries, eyes unable to leave this boy, clad in torn denim and unlaced converse, resembling a summer storm and long warm nights all at once.</p><p>Suddenly, Jeno was back in high school and hopelessly in love. Again and again and again. Because, it seemed, Donghyuck truly never left.</p><p>Jaemin’s tug is persistent, his voice drowning out some pop song playing on the radio. “What’s he doing here?” he asks, as if Jeno held all the answers to Donghyuck’s misfits. Jeno was only crushing desperately on Donghyuck throughout high school, seeking pieces of reciprocated affections whenever he’d meet Donghyuck’s gaze across the classroom or ask for a spare pencil. Jeno couldn’t have known anything about the other boy other than what he heard from their mutual friends, especially after Donghyuck had left their small hometown once they graduated and ventured somewhere unknown, leaving unspoken words covered in honey to choke up Jeno night upon a night.</p><p>And now, two years later, Donghyuck is standing at the entrance of the diner Jeno works at, luminous in his beauty, ready to throw Jeno from grace.</p><p>A single moment passes before Donghyuck steps inside, two more people tagging along, and Jeno feels like he can’t breathe.</p><p>“Stay here, I’ll get them,” Jaemin says, taking three of their menus beneath the counter before disappearing into the labyrinth of worn-out leather seats and greasy tiles. Someone from the kitchen, Doyoung probably, shouts his name, but Jeno pays no attention to it, not when there’s déjà vu of heartbreak passing before his own eyes, enveloped in bronze skin and memories so so bitter.</p><p> </p><p>Jeno doesn’t sleep that night. He tosses and turns on his childhood bed, blank walls staring back at him, yellowish traces of once taped movie posters forever present. After he’d graduated and watched Donghyuck leave, Jeno decided to remove any tangible reminiscences of his high school days, all except the junk Jaemin and Renjun gifted him for his birthdays throughout the years. One of them, a scarped skateboard, tempts him from the corner of the room. He doesn’t fall for it.</p><p>Instead, he lights a cigarette and stares at the endless row of identical houses, the late summer breeze chasing away the smoke from his room. The curtains tangle around his arm, soft like Donghyuck’s hair seemed today, cinnamon brown and curling slightly at the tips.</p><p>Defeated, Jeno surrenders to the images of Donghyuck under the flashing neon lights, black and white walls doing nothing to tinge his wrecked beauty. Two years have passed, yet Donghyuck’s lips still reminded Jeno of maple syrup, dreams promising of sticky and sweet kisses. He’d done nothing to change the way he looks, from his oversized shirt to the sewn daisy-shaped patches on his jeans. Inwardly, Jeno wonders if he still signed his name with glitter pens, ones that smelled like oranges, just as that one time Jeno fell from his skateboard, cracked his arm in two places, and Donghyuck walked to him with a grin and wrote his name in a heart on Jeno’s cast.</p><p>Yet, somehow, even if he did change, Jeno would still be in love with the image of this perfect boy he crafted in his mind, one that never spoke to him but would never look away, chasing his eyes across the classroom, dark as the bottom of the ocean, dragging Jeno down, down, down.</p><p> </p><p>“He isn’t here to stay,” Jaemin tells him the next day as they’re finishing their second shift. Jeno nearly drops the basin cramped with dishes from his hands.</p><p>He decides to act dumb, as if anything he does could pass unnoticed by his best friend. Or even worse – Renjun.</p><p>“Really, Jeno? I thought we’d gotten over him,” Renjun scowls, an unimpressed arch of an eyebrow aimed at him.</p><p>The neon logo illuminates Renjun’s small build from behind, casting his aura in shades of red, like flames. Put a trident in his hand and it’d fit his personality perfectly, Jeno thinks. The devil in disguise slouches on one of the bar chairs, his legs swinging back and forth, bare below his knees and feet safely secured in polished combat boots. He always came by the end of Jeno and Jaemin’s night shift, ready to drive them home after they’d had a couple of beers at the nearby basketball court.</p><p>Tonight is no different, apart from the <em>persona non grata</em> intertwining his way into their conversations. With Donghyuck back, their lives static and Jaemin’s hair back to bubblegum pink, Jeno realizes it’s high school all over again.</p><p>“I don’t believe this. When we’ve finally <em>cured</em> you—“</p><p>“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jeno mutters under his breath, carrying the dirty dishes into the kitchen and muffling most of the curses spilling from Renjun’s tongue.</p><p>“Fine. Stay in fucking denial then,” Renjun’s voice sneaks through the double-acting door. “He doesn’t even have the <em>right</em> to be heartbroken when he’s never dared to ask him out or anything. Like, he’s never rejected him - yeah I know we’ve been over this - I just don’t think I can handle any more Donghyuck-induced moping from him.”</p><p>He can’t hear what Jaemin tells him but, whatever it may be, it forces Renjun to lower his tone as well, their conversation falling into a hushed exchange away from Jeno.</p><p>With a sigh, he rolls up his sleeves and plunges his hands into the soapy water.</p><p> </p><p>The last person Jeno expects to see at the court is Donghyuck. Yet there he is, pacing aimlessly along the free throw line, sipping on something that looked like the beer Jaemin currently protected inside of his backpack. Jeno has to pinch his wrist, just in case he’s hallucinating from tiredness, but Donghyuck didn’t move from his spot, only enhanced by the soft streetlight.</p><p>The bottles inside of Jaemin’s backpack clink against one another when he comes to a sudden halt, eyes widening at the recognition.</p><p>“Oh you’ve <em>got</em> to be shitting me,” he says behind his fist.</p><p>Jeno feels Renjun’s fingers grasp the back of his oversized plaid shirt, causing him to stumble back.</p><p>“Back in the car. Now.”</p><p>“Jaemin?”</p><p>Donghyuck’s voice raises hairs at the back of his neck, all the suppressed feelings crashing into him full speed like a meteor. Only Renjun’s hand, pressed into his lower back, keeps him from falling onto his knees before Donghyuck’s unholy form. Two years, and it only took him to hear Donghyuck’s voice to realize he never stopped being in love with him.</p><p>“Hey Donghyuck,” Jaemin drawls out, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. Their tension is palpable once Donghyuck starts approaching them, beer in one hand and the other stuck inside the pocket of his grey hoodie. Long time ago, he and Jaemin attended the same film club, with Jaemin dropping out in favor of spending his afterschool activities behind the bleachers, making out with some senior year kid named Yukhei. Jeno cursed Jaemin’s little escapades given that his best friend was his only reliable source on Donghyuck updates, but it all stopped mattering once they parted ways.</p><p>Except now. With a flutter of butterflies dancing on his skin, Jeno wonders how intricate his and Donghyuck’s paths truly are. He never believed in coincidence, not with this boy that carried galaxies imprinted into his skin.</p><p>To Jeno, they were cosmical.</p><p>“You’re out here alone?” Jaemin says, breaking Jeno out of his thoughts. Inwardly, he tries to focus on anything but Donghyuck’s presence slithering through the cracks on his body, like shattered porcelain, and threatening to never leave again. Eventually, he settles on a chalk drawing of the sun, right beneath Donghyuck’s Converse.</p><p>“Just reminiscing,” Jeno hears him say, “before I leave again.”</p><p>It was like a punch to the gut, sudden and breath-cutting.</p><p>Next to him, Renjun lets out a relieved sigh.</p><p>“Well we were—“</p><p>“—just about to leave,” Renjun butts in, already on his way back. Jaemin looks after him, a disappointed crease settling between his eyebrows.</p><p>“You heard him,” Jaemin says, and Jeno is not sure to whom it’s directed – him or Donghyuck. Daringly, he looks up, only to lower his gaze just as fast, rushing down the path leading outside the court. He ignores Jaemin’s call of his name.</p><p>With a stumble in his step, Jeno slides into the passenger seat. Renjun doesn’t say anything to him, aimlessly going through the radio stations and settling for his favorite. Jeno closes his eyes.</p><p>Above them, the plains of the night sky remind Jeno of Donghyuck’s eyes on him – peculiar and star-bearing, pledging to unleash storms with the first rays of the rosy dawn.</p><p> </p><p>True to Jeno’s predictions, the first of many arrives the very next day, over a cherry-vanilla milkshake.</p><p>Crossing from the night shift into the one from 8am never truly bothered Jeno, especially on a Tuesday morning, during the summer break, when his only customers were passers-by, some college students, home for the break, and Donghyuck.</p><p>Jeno fights the urge to duck under the counter and pretend he didn’t just watch the love of his life walk into the diner, stardust smeared over his knuckles and bare shoulders. Jeno’s heart climbs up his throat, backing him up with each step his inevitable crush takes. The sound his shoes make against the floor, sticky as if he tore through his soles, stops when a pair of butterfly hair clips fall into Jeno’s vision.</p><p>Where is Jaemin when Jeno needed him?</p><p>“Hi,” a small voice startles Jeno and he looks down from the butterfly clips. Huge mistake.</p><p>Donghyuck blinks at him, red-rimmed and tiredly, but the tilt of his lips is coated in pink so glossy the light bounces off of it.</p><p>“Can I order here?”</p><p>“Uh sure,” Jeno straightens his back, trying to keep his composure. Denial was Jeno’s greatest vigor, he might as well make use of it now. “What’d you like?”</p><p>Donghyuck drags one finger against the glass surface, humming as he examines the menu above their heads. “Anything you’d recommend?”</p><p>“Uh,” Jeno starts, another of many <em>uh</em>s this morning, all while trying to focus solely on the plastic butterflies, rivaling the ones coursing through the pit of his stomach.</p><p>“I’m up for anything sugary,” Donghyuck shrugs, hiding his hands inside of pockets. He’s wearing the same pair of torn-daisy-patched jeans from yesterday, Jeno notes.</p><p>“Perhaps a milkshake?”</p><p>“Are you going to make it for me?”</p><p>The back of Jeno’s neck is hot when he rubs the spot there, looking anywhere but his sweet, sweet, never-over-him, crush. His heels stick to the dirty floor when he turns and goes for the fridge, pretending his fingers didn’t quiver as if he got told to hold Donghyuck’s hand or something.</p><p>Donghyuck takes his choked <em>Yeah</em> as permission to sit on one of the bar stools, leaning ahead with his elbows on the table and chin cupped within his palms. He reminds Jeno of those disgustingly, blindingly bright, pop posters from the 50s put up all over the diner. If Jeno put two straws in his glass and leaned over the counter, showing off his muscle a bit, winking cockily at a flustered Donghyuck, they’d be living the teen dream. And swear to god, Jeno hates (loves) it.</p><p>Donghyuck’s lips leave a bright pink, like strawberries, kiss on the straw when Jeno puts the glass before him and the poster boy of some other times takes a first sip.</p><p>“Cherries,” he smacks his lips, tapping a finger against his cheek. “And vanilla. Like your hair.”</p><p>Jeno blinks. “Excuse me?”</p><p>“Your hair. You changed it.”</p><p>Words stop passing between them after that because Jeno covers at the other side of the counter, wiping his sweaty palms against his apron until the skin there is baby-pink and parched, and Donghyuck leaves with the straw bitten flat and a piece of Jeno’s heart on his tongue.</p><p> </p><p>“He told you <em>what</em>?” Jaemin shrieks when Renjun presses his thumbs into his waist, pulling him onto his lap at the back of Jeno’s old Mustang. It’s head-aching, really, listening to both of them bickering, R.E.M playing on the radio, and imagining Donghyuck’s thin fingers rubbing leftover vanilla cream from his chin.</p><p>Jaemin’s foot kicks hard against the back of Jeno’s seat, rattling the entire car with a single blow.</p><p>“Stop trying to demolish my car! You’ll walk home,” he snaps, grabbing Jaemin’s ankle and throwing him back so he’s seated entirely on Renjun’s lap.</p><p>“It’s Renjun’s fault,” Jaemin pouts and Jeno sees in the rear-view mirror Renjun press a kiss on his temple. Jaemin melts.</p><p>“Like, what the fuck does that even mean?” Jeno says, rubbing his temples. The empty parking lot before them glows in the neon light of some 24/7 convenience store, hues of blues and reds painting the concrete. Jeno wouldn’t be surprised to see Donghyuck pop out from somewhere, by the order of things so far, butterfly hair clips and all, breath smelling like cherries.</p><p>“I said I’m not going through this again,” Renjun says, his voice muffled against Jaemin’s hoodie.</p><p>“Well you did change your hair,” Jaemin points the obvious, bending forward till he could scratch the back of Jeno’s head, where the bleached undercut faded into his neck.</p><p>That was true. Like any person going through heartbreak, post-graduation, Jeno did the next most logical thing – he bleached his hair wheat-blonde, in his shattered bathroom mirror, by himself, hoping his old feelings would fade away just as same. (Hint: they didn’t.)</p><p>“I know, but why does he care?”</p><p>“Hey Jeno, did you save his straw?” Renjun laughs with Jaemin trying to, unsuccessfully, silence his words with a hand over his mouth. “I bet you did, you weirdo.”</p><p>“Just don’t overthink it,” Jaemin says, falling back into Renjun’s arms and cuddling against his neck. “He’ll be gone faster than you think.”</p><p> </p><p>Jeno overthinks it.</p><p>He overthinks it to the point he is one hundred percent sure he attracts Donghyuck with his thoughts solely.</p><p>It’s hot as hell today, too hot for this time of the year – end of August, sizzling concrete, popsicle dripping down Donghyuck’s fingers – and the watermelon beneath Jeno’s arm nearly slithers and dyes the ground red and green.</p><p>Donghyuck slurps the syrupy drop from his thumb, eyes widening at recognition when he spots Jeno’s unruly form on the other side of the parking lot. He waves his free hand, the one without the popsicle, and his striped shirt untucks from a pair of high waisted jeans, skin so sun-kissed Jeno has no option, like a sunflower, but to be drawn to it.</p><p>His hands are packed with groceries, three bags and the fucking watermelon, slipping with each second Donghyuck gets closer to him. If only he could open the trunk with his foot and drive off before Donghyuck reaches him or, even worse, <em>talks</em> to him, adds to Jeno’s sleepless nights—</p><p>“Here, let me help you,” Donghyuck steals the watermelon from Jeno, but not before he downs the rest of the popsicle, the wooden stick hanging off of his lip.</p><p>“I’m fine, really—“</p><p>“No, c’mon,” Donghyuck opens the trunk for him, standing patiently with the watermelon in his hand, waiting for Jeno to look at him so he could grin, glazed and sticky, over the gnawed popsicle.</p><p>At one point, while Jeno fumbles with his bags and Donghyuck, helpfully, offers the watermelon, their fingers touch and electricity, silver and hot, surges through Jeno’s spine and he whimpers inwardly, because everything with Donghyuck is like that – unpredictable, stealing bits of his soul with mere graze of his fingertips.</p><p>Jeno gives him a long stare and Donghyuck revels in it. He is not wearing the butterfly clips today. So that’s exactly what Jeno tells him.</p><p>“They didn’t match my outfit.”</p><p>“I see.”</p><p>“Did you like them?” Donghyuck looks embarrassed, but not the shining, bright red, embarrassment that coils your guts into knots, but the one with its cheeks tinted pink and feet turned inwards, touching at toes.</p><p>When Jeno doesn’t respond, Donghyuck perks at him though his long fringe.</p><p>“I really liked the milkshake yesterday.”</p><p>His doom is inevitable, so Jeno decides to not persist in his silence. He stops overthinking.</p><p>“Doyoung added a new one to the menu. Something like a banana cream pie. I could make it for you if you’d like.”</p><p>Donghyuck’s smile is brighter that summer, the clouds behind him cotton candy pink.</p><p>“I’d love that.”</p><p> </p><p>“So it’s like a date?”</p><p>Jeno covers the speaker, huddled against the hallway wall, family pictures hanging above his head, his sister yelling at him to get off the damn phone, it was her turn.</p><p>“No, not a date,” he whispers into the handset, palming his mouth, “he’s just going to stop by tomorrow at the end of my shift.”</p><p>He can almost <em>hear</em> Jaemin roll his eyes. “Why the end?”</p><p>“It’s the least crowded then.”</p><p>“Or do you plan to take him somewhere after?”</p><p>“I—<em>maybe,</em>” Jeno sighs, giving the finger to his sister when she opens the door of her room and threatens she will tell mom if he doesn’t hang up right now, “just please don’t say anything to Renjun.”</p><p>“Not a word.”</p><p> </p><p>Their phone rings an hour later. Renjun sounds like he’s on gunpoint and Jeno’s convinced that’s Jaemin’s voice in the back.</p><p>“I just want to tell you I’m not proud—“</p><p>“It’s <em>not</em> a date.”</p><p>“—but make sure you wear something nice. Any of the flannel shirts are out of the question.”</p><p>Before Jeno could repeat that <em>no</em>, it was not a date, he’s met with a recurring beeping sound and his thoughts, a scraped cassette, stuck in an endless loop.</p><p>It was not a date.</p><p> </p><p>Jeno was right – it was not a date.</p><p>More of a planet-collision, running-down-the-Milky-Way-barefoot, threading-stars-through-fingers type of a meeting. </p><p>Donghyuck shows up in denim overalls and glittery hairclips – <em>These matched my outfit better</em>, he explains – fingers eager to grasp the milkshake glass filled up to the brim, white foam catching on the tip of his nose.</p><p>“Not bad,” he says, skin red through his freckles, and Jeno’s heart <em>swells. </em> </p><p>After Jeno’s shift ends, sky painted in oranges and corals, they only get as far as the diner lights touch the curb before Donghyuck crouches to sit on the warm concrete. Wordlessly, Jeno joins him, their shoulders grazing through Donghyuck’s knit sweater and Jeno’s uniform. </p><p>They begin slipping through paradise on insecure legs.</p><p>“So,” Donghyuck says, “<em>Jeno</em>?”</p><p>One of their many firsts and this one is the most important – Donghyuck calling him by his name, a bit insecure like when he asked Jeno if he liked his hairclips today, even though they weren’t shaped like butterflies.</p><p>“Donghyuck?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>Donghyuck lolls his head, grinning at the evening sky. He settles on Jeno’s shoulder eventually, his cinnamon hairs tickling the underside of Jeno’s chin.</p><p>“Can I ask you something?” Jeno says and hears a hum of approval. “Do you still sign your name with glitter pens?”</p><p>“Ones that smell like oranges? No. I like the lemon ones better now.” Jeno feels him look up, the smaller boy’s nose rubbing away the tension from his jaw. “Why? What did you break this time?”</p><p><em>Nothing, I’m just afraid you might break my heart again</em>, he thinks and instantly shakes his head, pushing away the thought before Renjun, somewhere, could sense something is wrong.</p><p>Instead, he doesn’t overthink. That is why, when Donghyuck’s palm sneaks into his calloused one, he closes his fingers around it and wonders how many <em>first ofs</em> they have left. </p><p> </p><p>“You fucking idiot,” Jaemin groans into his hands, Renjun tells him something along the lines of <em>I told you so, </em>and Jeno can’t pinpoint what’s wrong.</p><p>He’s only told them he’s not in love.</p><p>
  
</p><p>Who else could get a chance to see Donghyuck like this, if not Jeno. Warm and radiant, he slips through Jeno’s hands with a trace of sun dust on his hands.</p><p>They’re sandwiched between the bookshelves, Donghyuck’s back rubbing against Jeno’s own, hands shy at fingertips, accidental touches softer than butterfly wings. The stuffy smell of antiques, books and old records make Jeno feel at home.</p><p>With sweater paws, cuddled inside of mustard yellow sleeves, Donghyuck picks a comic and makes a face at a random page.</p><p>“What about this one?” Jeno takes <em>Hellboy: Seed of Destruction,</em> flips through the pages as Donghyuck peeks over his shoulder in interest. “Demons and dark magic, surely something I’d like.”</p><p> “<em>You,</em>” Donghyuck pokes the side of Jeno’s face, a measure of innocent distraction, and steals the comic from Jeno’s hands, “not me.”</p><p>“What is that you’d like then?” Jeno asks, realizing too late the trap when the apples of Donghyuck’s cheek ripe, menace rising like a tide when their eyes meet and Jeno, a lovesick fool, starts fighting for air.</p><p>An unknown voice snaps them from their haze, the comic falling from Donghyuck’s hands onto the floor. The clerk, a girl Jeno recognizes from school, gives them a disapproving stare. Mostly for the dropped comic.</p><p>“Sorry, guys. We’re closing in 5 minutes.”</p><p>When they leave the store, one <em>Hellboy</em> packed inside of Donghyuck’s backpack, the air smells of the upcoming harvest festival, smoke and sundown. A gust of wind pushes the hair from their faces and Jeno swears Donghyuck’s never been more beautiful than now – tan forehead, dotted with sidereus moles, body embracing both nocturnal and sun-like features.</p><p>From the corner of his eyes, he sees Donghyuck shudder.</p><p>“My car’s just down the street. Want me to drop you off?”</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p>Donghyuck doesn’t tell him his address. Other than Jeno stalking him throughout the entirety of his education, it’s a small town and they all know each other without ever exchanging a word. That includes both of their names and Donghyuck’s old family home, its white picket fence and a rusty set of swings.</p><p>Infinite rows of pine, outgrown with moss, cast the roadway into darkness where Jeno’s headlights couldn’t reach them. His heartbeat is so loud he thinks even Donghyuck can hear it, drowning out the rumbling engine.</p><p>“We’re not going home?” Donghyuck doesn’t look away from the road, Jeno neither when he responds.</p><p>“Do you want to go home, Hyuck?”</p><p>Another of <em>firsts</em>.</p><p> “No.”</p><p>Jeno presses the gas and Donghyuck closes his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>And</em>?” Jaemin looks at him expectantly, trying to simultaneously drizzle caramel syrup over some bratty kid’s vanilla ice-cream and wrap his mind around the fact Jeno and Donghyuck, <em>the</em> Donghyuck, drove off into the night.</p><p>“And nothing,” Jeno shrugs, “if your mind is shifting to <em>those</em> places, I’ll have to disappoint you. We only talked.”</p><p>Jaemin shoves the cone into the kid’s hand, shooing him with a frown when the kid complains about the lack of sprinkles on top. It was another unusually hot afternoon and Jaemin’s worst nightmare dawned upon him when Doyoung proposed they should, after all, keep the outer ice-cream machine running by the end of September. On Jeno’s day off. Just as school was about to start.</p><p>“Listen – <em>fuck off kid</em> – you’re telling me you got to spend the night with someone you once called, and I quote, “the love of my life”, and you just talked?” Jaemin says, raising a doubtful eyebrow.</p><p>“Believe what you want, I’m telling you how things really are. Although—“ Jeno stops mid-sentence and Jaemin’s eyes go wide, hopeful.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“He did say this one thing.”</p><p>And Jeno will go back to that night as long as he’s alive – to that moon, to the wind in the forest, to Donghyuck. To that one moment when Donghyuck crossed the distance between them, his hand on the back of Jeno’s neck, close, <em>so close</em>, he can’t help but ache for more.</p><p>“They all want to know, but you’re the only one who hasn’t asked.”</p><p>“Asked what?” Jeno’s arms are stiff by his side even while Donghyuck sneaks his own around the width of his shoulders. Faintly, as if they grow from his skin, Donghyuck smells like violets.</p><p>“Maybe that’s the problem with you, Jeno. You never ask.”</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, Jeno begins to realize all of their firsts belong to Donghyuck. His name, the heart line on his palm, mornings basked in dew and nights under the white moon – they all belong to this boy made of stars. And Jeno gladly surrenders it to him since, in the end, it all led up to them. All up to the sugar on his tongue that is so sweet against Donghyuck’s own, their mouths pressed together, moving languidly in the rhythm of their breathing – it’s all Donghyuck’s.</p><p>For the first time in forever, when his mind shifts to him, Jeno doesn’t think of what ifs or missed opportunities. Somewhere, he realizes, they are inevitable.</p><p>And maybe, just maybe, Jeno never asks because, this entire time, he knew.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re here because your parents sold your house,” Jeno says to Donghyuck one mid-afternoon while he dips his bare feet into the fountain, right across the town hall. They don’t attract any unwanted attention, the streets bare save for an occasional car or kids returning from school.</p><p>Jeno’s chest heaves beneath his white shirt when Donghyuck squints at him below the rim of a denim bucket hat.</p><p>“Is that what Jaemin told you?” Donghyuck asks.</p><p>Jeno can only nod, shifting on his feet uncomfortably. He needs to fill in for Jaemin at the diner and they will kill him if he’s late.</p><p>“But I know that’s not the only reason.”</p><p>“Oh really?” Donghyuck glances at Jeno over his shoulder, absorbing him from the dusty combat boots to his name tag, a tad lopsided and washed-out. “What is it then?”</p><p>“You knew. Every time I’d look at you in class you’d look back and—<em>and,” </em>Jeno waves his hands haphazardly, avoiding Donghyuck’s amused stare, “and you would never say anything, then you <em>left</em> so what was I supposed to do?”</p><p>“But I came back. To get my things, among others, but I’m here now.”</p><p>Wonderful, wonderful, child of the Sun, will never be guilty that Jeno feels this way. It’s his fault, and no one else’s, that he wants Donghyuck to crawl inside of him, sprout through his lungs until elder blooms and seasons pass, but he never leaves, eternal as Time.</p><p>“And you will leave again,” Jeno’s voice cracks with that and he blames the dry air for the swell in his throat, irritating, “I’m not sure if I can go through it for the second time.”</p><p>He doesn’t say that although, with you, Donghyuck, only <em>firsts</em> count.</p><p>And what happens when there are none left?</p><p> </p><p>“See, I knew this would happen,” Renjun crosses his arms over his chest, frowning at the image playing before him – Jeno, face down into his pillow, and Jaemin throwing a leather jacket and a clean shirt over his best friend’s passed out body, all while simultaneously ignoring the muffled threats thrown in his direction.</p><p>“Get out of my house!”</p><p>“We’re not leaving without you,” and judging by his tone, Renjun’s convinced Jaemin, in fact, won’t let them leave without their miserable friend. After all, Renjun doesn’t know who thought it would be a good idea to go to Donghyuck’s farewell party, with Jeno out of all people.</p><p>“To think you’ve learned something from before,” Renjun says, directed at his boyfriend, and turns to leave the scene. “It’s funny how, after all this time, he’s the one who comes looking for you and you still don’t know how to keep him.”</p><p>Jeno’s body stills and Jaemin, mouth pursued like he’s about to laugh out loud, gives Renjun an encouraging nod.</p><p>“Maybe you, Jeno, simply let him go.”</p><p> </p><p>In the end it all comes down to this:</p><p>The house is cramped; body upon body leaving teasing traces to some old tune playing over the speakers, but Jeno can only see Donghyuck at the other side of the room. Like in those familiar days of the past, Donghyuck catches him staring and doesn’t look away. Yet unlike those days, Jeno walks the distance keeping them apart, heart thrumming in the rhythm of his steps.</p><p>Donghyuck is both sun and the moon. In the daylight, his skin is bronze with a hint of gold blush on his elbows and kneecaps, but as summer dusk settles over their empty streets, he shines the brightest in this cluster of people, threading silver dust through his fingers and his hair. And Jeno, just like any human, can’t cast him away. Since when has anyone ever lived with the sun solely? Or the moon?</p><p>“You’re here,” Donghyuck shouts over the music, the glitter on his face enhancing his beauty in the dim light.</p><p>“I think I’m in love with you,” Jeno shouts back and hopes the entire house can hear him, over the drunken shouts and loud bass, now that he’s never, in his entire life, been this sure in something. In someone.</p><p>A spark catches light in Donghyuck’s eyes and Jeno can’t pinpoint if it’s the glitter or the clear liquid he’s been sipping on, but whatever it may be, it pulls them in until there’s no space between their bodies, mirrored hearts beating as one.</p><p>“And even if you leave again, that is okay because I know you will come back. And, like this time and every next one, I will wait for you.”</p><p>Just like that, with those words, Jeno stops counting their firsts, seconds and thirds, all to infinity. They all stop mattering, because they’re all the same. In each and every one of them, he’s in love with Donghyuck.</p><p>Kissing Donghyuck in the crowd of people isn’t different than kissing him alone in the back of Jeno’s car. It also makes no difference when Donghyuck pushes him into an empty bathroom, nearly tumbling over the threshold and knocking down whatever it was arranged on the sink.</p><p>Donghyuck moans, shy with a tinge of pink on his cheeks, around Jeno’s tongue, proving that the clear liquid in his cup was vodka. Intoxicated, Jeno tries to take in the moment when the boy in his arms clings around his neck, promising <em>so so much more, please take me home Jeno, baby, let me show you</em>. He kisses him again after those words, sluggishly, purposely dragging out the moment in which Jeno hooks his thumbs inside of Donghyuck’s belt loops, flipping them so his own back is pressed against the sink.</p><p>He doesn’t get to take them home that night, not when Donghyuck’s eager hands encourage Jeno to unbutton his jeans, polling around his knees. He snatches away the bottle from Donghyuck’s fingers, probably found on the sink, and kisses his lips softly.</p><p>“Not here, not like this. I want to take my time with you.”</p><p>Donghyuck makes him swear on that as he drops on his knees, nuzzling against Jeno’s throbbing length. White and sticky, he spreads Jeno’s cum between his fingers, shallow pumps forcing fingering into his hair, pulling, demanding.</p><p>He prolongs this on purpose just so he could hear Jeno’s stuttered moans, head thrown back when Donghyuck takes him wholly, pulsating and full in his throat.</p><p>Jeno rambles, threatens, begs once Donghyuck starts bobbing his head and, for a moment, stills in utter desperation for Donghyuck to “calm down, please, not like this—“</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Donghyuck swallows, kisses his trembling thigh, “I can take it. Take you.”</p><p>They don’t leave the bathroom until Jeno vows over and over again to revisit them, this night, his words, until his throat numbs from promises, from tears, from love.</p><p> </p><p>“So he won’t stay?” Jaemin asks sluggishly, draped over overly sober Renjun’s shoulder.</p><p>“No,” Jeno shrugs, helping Renjun with the door as he pushes Jaemin on the backseat and settles next to him. He avoids the pitying look he recognizes in Renjun’s eyes and instead focuses on the road before them.</p><p>“Well, it wouldn’t be a first, would it?”</p><p>“Or last,” Jaemin hiccups before he passes out on Renjun’s shoulder. </p><p>Donghyuck comes back into Jeno's life like a supernova. Transient and made of thousands of stars glued to his skin, he surges through Jeno with a force of an astronomical event.</p><p>The only difference is - this time, there are no firsts. Only forevers.</p><p> </p><p>(+1)</p><p>Jeno doesn’t get a chance to light his cigarette with bruised fingers when Donghyuck shows up in his denim overalls and worn out converse, scarps of silver glitter on his eyelids reminding Jeno of last night, of Donghyuck’s half-open mouth, head thrown back, skin so soft and gold to Jeno even through the neon haze.</p><p>“Hey,” he hears Donghyuck say as he stops before him, hands buried deep into his pockets, “thought I’d find you here.” His bottom lip is bitten raw - Donghyuck’s own nervous habit or from last night, Jeno’s not sure anymore.</p><p>“You’ve been waiting for me to go on break?” Jeno returns the cigarette pack to his back pocket, rubbing his sweaty palms over the ugly black apron. Glancing upwards, he sees Donghyuck follow his every move with his dark eyes, like storms and black ink on the tips of his fingers. Instinctively, Jeno looks away, scraping his nail over a blemish on his uniform pants. “Weirdo. I thought you have a train to catch.”</p><p>“You left last night,” Donghyuck says, ignoring Jeno’s last remark, and somehow thinking it’d be a good idea to bring himself closer to Jeno, to run his fingers over his white collar, play with the wrinkled material, bring unease to Jeno he’d have to mend for days. “You left and you didn’t give me a goodbye kiss.”</p><p>“A goodbye kiss—“ Jeno ponders, nearly forgetting they were supposed to say their goodbyes, promises, seconds, thirds and infinites. He stopped counting. “I thought we agreed not to say those.”<em>I’d be easier. </em></p><p>Because Donghyuck is this insatiable force coursing through Jeno’s core, summer under his tongue and, worst of all, his high school crush, he allows this boy with flowers growing from his skin to pin him against the brick wall until he can feel nothing but the buttons of Donghyuck’s denim press into his chest.</p><p>“I have to go back,” Jeno manages to utter, quiet even to himself. “So do you.”</p><p>“No, you don’t. And neither do I,” Donghyuck’s breath is warm against Jeno’s cheek. “Only we matter now.”</p><p>As Jeno allows Donghyuck to step on the toes of his shoes and lift his chin so their lips fit like ones of lovers do, Jeno thinks that, for the first time in forever, Donghyuck may be right. Only they matter now. And, maybe, they always did.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/dawndeer99">twitter</a> | <a href="https://curiouscat.qa/dawndeer99">cc</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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